Unwanted pregnancy, mental health and abortion: untangling the evidence

Abortion policy is still contentious in many parts of the world, and periodically it emerges to dominate health policy debates. This paper examines one such debate in Australia centering on research findings by a New Zealand research group, Fergusson, Horwood & Ridder, published in early 2006. The debate highlighted the difficulty for researchers when their work is released in a heightened political context. We argue that the authors made a logical error in constructing their analysis and interpreting their data, and are therefore not justified in making policy claims for their work. The paper received significant public attention, and may have influenced the public policy position of a major professional body. Deeply held views on all sides of the abortion debate are unlikely to be reconciled, but if policy is to be informed by research, findings must be based on sound science

Medicine in the Popular Press: The Influence of the Media on Perceptions of Disease

In an age of increasing globalization and discussion of the possibility of global pandemics, increasing rates of reporting of these events may influence public perception of risk. The present studies investigate the impact of high levels of media reporting on the perceptions of disease. Undergraduate psychology and medical students were asked to rate the severity, future prevalence and disease status of both frequently reported diseases (e.g. avian flu) and infrequently reported diseases (e.g. yellow fever). Participants considered diseases that occur frequently in the media to be more serious, and have higher disease status than those that infrequently occur in the media, even when the low media frequency conditions were considered objectively ‘worse’ by a separate group of participants. Estimates of severity also positively correlated with popular print media frequency in both student populations. However, we also see that the concurrent presentation of objective information about the diseases can mitigate this effect. It is clear from these data that the media can bias our perceptions of disease

Systematic review on quality control for drug management programs: Is quality reported in the literature?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Maintaining quality of care while managing limited healthcare resources is an ongoing challenge in healthcare. The objective of this study was to evaluate how the impact of drug management programs is reported in the literature and to identify potentially existing quality standards.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This analysis relates to the published research on the impact of drug management on economic, clinical, or humanistic outcomes in managed care, indemnity insurance, VA, or Medicaid in the USA published between 1996 and 2007. Included articles were systematically analyzed for study objective, study endpoints, and drug management type. They were further categorized by drug management tool, primary objective, and study endpoints.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>None of the 76 included publications assessed the overall quality of drug management tools. The impact of 9 different drug management tools used alone or in combination was studied in pharmacy claims, medical claims, electronic medical records or survey data from either patient, plan or provider perspective using an average of 2.1 of 11 possible endpoints. A total of 68% of the studies reported the impact on plan focused endpoints, while the clinical, the patient or the provider perspective were studied to a much lower degree (45%, 42% and 12% of the studies). Health outcomes were only accounted for in 9.2% of the studies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Comprehensive assessment of quality considering plan, patient and clinical outcomes is not yet applied. There is no defined quality standard. Benchmarks including health outcomes should be determined and used to improve the overall clinical and economic effectiveness of drug management programs.</p

Recent developments in immunotherapy of acute myeloid leukemia

The advent of new immunotherapeutic agents in clinical practice has revolutionized cancer treatment in the past decade, both in oncology and hematology. The transfer of the immunotherapeutic concepts to the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is hampered by various characteristics of the disease, including non-leukemia-restricted target antigen expression profile, low endogenous immune responses, and intrinsic resistance mechanisms of the leukemic blasts against immune responses. However, considerable progress has been made in this field in the past few years. Within this manuscript, we review the recent developments and the current status of the five currently most prominent immunotherapeutic concepts: (1) antibody-drug conjugates, (2) T cell-recruiting antibody constructs, (3) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, (4) checkpoint inhibitors, and (5) dendritic cell vaccination. We focus on the clinical data that has been published so far, both for newly diagnosed and refractory/relapsed AML, but omitting immunotherapeutic concepts in conjunction with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Besides, we have included important clinical trials that are currently running or have recently been completed but are still lacking full publication of their results. While each of the concepts has its particular merits and inherent problems, the field of immunotherapy of AML seems to have taken some significant steps forward. Results of currently running trials will reveal the direction of further development including approaches combining two or more of these concepts

Students academic profiles as a measure of the accuracy of school transition decisions: A validation study

In verschiedenen europäischen Ländern führt der Wechsel zur Sekundarschule zu einer bedeutsamen Aufgliederung der Bildungswege, welche ein unterschiedlich hohes Schulleistungsniveau der Schüler*innen voraussetzen. Die Akkuratheit der Zuweisung von Sekundarschulformen bestimmt nicht nur die Optionen der Schüler*innen bei späteren Übergangen im Bildungssystem, sondern beeinflusst auch den weiteren beruflichen und persönlichen Werdegang der Schüler*innen. Schüler*innen mit Migrationshintergrund sind auf die höheren sekundären Schulformen unterrepräsentiert. Inwiefern diese Unterrepräsentation auf stereotypgeprägte Leistungserwartungen zurückzuführen ist, ist bis jetzt unklar, denn es lisgt kein Kriterium vor, um die Urteilsakkuratheit adäquat zu messen. In diesem Kapitel wird ein Ansatz beschrieben, ein solches Akkuratheitskriterium zu entwickeln und zu validieren. In einem zweiten Schritt wird das Kriterium angewendet, um den Zusammenhang zwischen stereotypgeprägten Erwartungen und der Akkuratheit der Übergangsentscheidungen zu untersuchen. Das Kriterium erweist sich als valides Maß und könnte so einen wertvollen Ansatz für weitere Untersuchungen der Akkuratheit von Lehrerurteilen darstellen. Obwohl Lehrer*innen im Allgemeinen eine hohe Urteilsakkuratheit aufweisen, bestätigen die Befunde dennoch die Zusammenhänge zwischen stereotypgeprägten Erwartungen und Urteilsverzerrungen